The present invention relates generally to the field of alerting emergency services to an emergency situation, and more particularly to alerting the proper emergency services in real time and within a predetermined distance from the scene of the emergency situation.
Millions of accidents and emergency situations happen every year and throughout the world. In the vast majority of these situations, the parties involved or witnesses need to contact the police, fire department, ambulance, or other services that are required to assist in the situation. Emergency calling involves a communication device dialing a short number to reach emergency help when an emergency is experienced. For example, in the United States ‘911’ may be dialed by a communication device. Once ‘911’ is dialed, the emergency personnel on the other end gathers the information about the accident and sends the information to the appropriate services. These personnel sometimes are the ones available to respond or within their district or city limits.
Unless calling from a landline, the person calling has to relay their location to the emergency personnel. Recently, mobile cell phones have become the primary means of communication in society. While many emergency systems and Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP) are able to determine a caller's location from a landline, and in some instances, they may have difficulty obtaining sufficiently-accurate location information for services calls made from mobile phones because of the person calling having difficulty properly explaining their location to the service provider. This is hugely significant in today's mobile world as, according to the FCC, over 70% of emergency calls are now being made via cell phone.
It is difficult for the emergency personnel to sometimes locate the individual calling if they do not know where they are. If the person is injured they may not be able to properly address the type of emergency or the most relevant and useful pieces of information for the emergency personnel. In some instances, the person calling may not be able to relay any information or may give incorrect information which further delays emergency services from arriving at the scene. There may be some situations where a caller can competently furnish the emergency service with accurate information and this only further increases the emergency services ability to arrive at the scene.
Therefore, it is desired, for a method and system to allow instant global positioning of the person contacting the emergency personnel with their location, the type of emergency, and relay this information directly and instantaneously to the proper emergency services.